DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997             TAG: 9704230454

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   95 lines

TAXES WON'T RISE, BUT SOME FEES WILL

City residents wouldn't pay higher taxes on their homes or cars, but it could cost them more to flush toilets and receive 911 protection in the coming year, under the administration's proposed 1998 budget.

In addition, residents throughout the region who lease long-term parking spaces downtown would pay $8 more a month for the privilege.

For a typical family of four, the proposed increase in the city's wastewater user fee translates to about 30 cents more a month on their utility bill, officials said.

The monthly addition for 911 service would increase their phone bill by 54 cents.

City officials boasted about keeping a lid on real estate and personal property taxes for another year, the second straight, and said the user-fee increases will help pay for needed repairs and replacement of sewer lines, improved emergency response time and new parking garages to accommodate the coming MacArthur Center mall.

``That's the most modest increase I've seen in my 11 years on council,'' Mayor Paul D. Fraim said Tuesday, pointing out that most households would pay just 84 cents more a month in higher fees.

Modest was the operative word to describe City Manager James B. Oliver Jr.'s proposed $509.7 million budget, released Tuesday. Spending would rise 4.5 percent over this year's $488.1 million fiscal plan.

In his budget message to the council, Oliver said the proposed budget reflects the top priorities identified by citizens in workshops over the past year: education, public safety, and economic development and neighborhoods.

Oliver's budget, which provides 41.2 percent of the spending for education, would fully fund the School Board's request for $209.7 million in operating money.

In addition, the city's $23.5 million capital improvements budget contains money to pay for a new Granby High School gym over the next two years, ending a months-long public debate over who would pay. Also, the capital budget has seed money to begin work on a new Taylor Elementary School and a renovated Bay View Elementary. While the funds would be spread out over two and three years, respectively, Fraim said the payout schedule shouldn't delay construction of either school.

Oliver said the budget leaves many needs unmet, not the least of which is the city's struggling library system. While the budget calls for an estimated $120,000 to buy a new, high-tech, Internet-capable bookmobile to replace a 30-year-old clunker, library trustees would get only $250,000 of the $1 million funding increase they sought.

Hoping to prevail on council members to add the other $750,000, two trustees met with three council members before Tuesday's meeting and presented them with a petition signed by more than 2,300 residents who support the $1 million increase.

The trustees say their request would bring library funding up to 1 percent of the city's overall budget, which they say is a benchmark of healthy libraries nationwide. Officials say the $250,000 increase would not put them any closer to the goal, since the resulting $4.1 million budget would remain at about 0.8 percent of the budget.

Overall, Oliver said officials had to ax $10 million in requested operating funds and $250 million in capital improvement projects.

But officials said the budget does include several new initiatives, if modest. Perhaps the most ambitious is a proposal that calls for creation of a new Department of Neighborhood and Environmental Improvement, designed to fight urban blight.

Among other things, the department, with a $195,615 budget, would be responsible for spearheading response to complaints about nuisances like abandoned buildings and cars, overgrown lots and potential health hazards. Working with civic and community groups, the department would compile a ``Top 10'' list of blighted communities and develop a plan to address the problems.

The initiative would require hiring a director, a new position. Three other employees would be transferred from other departments that handle nuisance complaints.

On the public safety front, there's enough money in the budget to double the number of police bicycle units patrolling neighborhoods at any given time to combat open-air drug markets and other street crime, officials said. That will put about 40 officers on bikes.

Also, the city will add another 20 police officers to the field in 1998, the result of federal grant money.

Altogether, the city would spend $91.3 million on public safety needs, the second-largest chunk of money behind education.

As for economic development, Oliver proposes hiring a downtown development manager, a new position, to oversee the improvements the city plans to make to streets and other infrastructure as it readies for the new MacArthur Center mall, a new Hilton Suites hotel, and a $30 million residential development project at Freemason Harbor.

The capital budget contains $4 million to continue a six-year plan to redevelop a 90-acre blighted section of East Ocean View into a new Bayfront village.

Under Oliver's plan, the city's estimated 3,700 employees would receive an annual salary adjustment of 2.47 percent, as well as an enhanced retirement plan that city officials say equals a 2 percent salary increase. ILLUSTRATION: A modest budget

GRAPHIC

[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.] KEYWORDS: BUDGET

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